Titles and headings help make your writing engaging

Journalists understand the power of the title in an online article. Titles are the first thing you read and they must engage your attention.

Take these examples from online newspapers on 18 August 2017.

Rare butterfly spotted in Scotland for the first time since 1884 (Read more)
How do you paint an eclipse? Work fast in the dark (Read more)
Now you can see what Donald Trump sees every time he opens Twitter (Read more)

I discovered that The Sydney Morning Herald has two different titles for its main articles. The first aims to get your attention so you click through, then the second one gives you more details.

Readers’ questions and the Facebook group

I haven’t received any questions this month, but several questions have been raised in the All about Words Facebook group. The beauty of raising questions in the Facebook group is that several people answer them. We usually agree, but occasionally there is some debate.

Questions posed included:

Question marks: Should you use a question mark when the first half of the sentence has the question but you go on with more information? For example, ‘Are you coming to the movies coz I thought we could go for dinner too.’

The Facebook group also chatted about irreversible binomials, which was a new term for me. It means two words or phrases that cannot be reversed, such as ‘fish and chips’ (not ‘chips and fish’). How many can you think of?